Technopole 1 July

My intention to write at length about representing Senegal’s NCD at Birdlife’s congress in Ottawa and, just before that, a first visit to Lac de Guiers were deflected by a return to Dakar’s Technopole after a two week gap and the discovery of four Franklin’s gulls. Two were adults in breeding plumage (the head of one just visible top left) and two apparently first winter or older, with no brown juvenile feathers. Birds have now been here on and off for two years, usually one or two, once three and now four. Presumably the two adults are two of the three seen as first or second year birds in 2011. Have they attempted to breed, or is this gregarious species just picking up other wandering individuals, and where are they when not in Dakar? As a banal record, is this the largest group seen on the eastern side of the Atlantic? I think so. I hope to provide some better photos of the four soon.

Overnight the year’s first rains fell in Dakar, one month after the first in Casamance. The few summering black-tailed godwits remain, black terns (photo in the foreground) had increased to c20, including breeding plumaged birds and a breeding plumage common tern was new.

Header photo: Cap Vert IBA, Dakar

The defunct, twin volcanoes of Mamelles, in Dakar's Ouakam arrondissement, with Cape Verde Shearwaters and Bottle-nosed Dolphins. The rocky coast of Dakar, forming the Cap Vert Important Bird Area, is an outstanding site for seabirds (photo: P. Robinson)